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Kali Linux vs MariaDB on CentOS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Kali Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MariaDB on CentOS
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
30th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Ciyagi Ciyagi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Solution Architect & Delivery Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Runs efficiently across devices and streamlines penetration testing workflows
Kali Linux could be improved by including more tools. I would personally like to see improvements in Kali Linux, particularly regarding Grub issues that sometimes occur when installing the VM. Additionally, I have experienced problems when updating Kali Linux from a higher version to a lower version, which resulted in crashes. These Grub issues should be resolved. I face significant challenges with Kali Linux regarding a major issue with the Grub loader becoming corrupted, which makes it very difficult to recover data.
YK
Senior Software Developer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Reliable relational database has handled heavy payment traffic and has improved query speed
The best features MariaDB on CentOS offers is that it is a default database, so we can easily install it. It was a seamless installation out of the box. The other thing which we need and which MariaDB provides is the speed. For pooling and handling multiple connections on a single instance, MySQL and some other services provide their enterprise edition that we need to pay for. However, for MariaDB on CentOS, it is freely available and built-in. With respect to that, it is all seamless. We do not need to pay for anything, and we are utilizing the best connection pooling capability. We also got some performance speeds over our queries. It is also very much compatible. It is all the same as MySQL. It fully supports MySQL. It is already compatible with our previous projects, and if we introduce some new kind of thing, it can handle everything. MariaDB on CentOS has positively impacted our organization because we were on a different relational database and that was not holding that much connection and that much speed. After implementing MariaDB, it gives us so much ease to handle those issues. It has things inside it so we do not even need to change the configuration; it handles it with very ease. The replication thing is very good, and we have fewer read replicas because of the connection handling. The reader latency is very less. We do not get any idea that the data we are fetching from a master to a slave instance is different because the reader latency is very less. The primary thing that we got from MariaDB on CentOS is the connection handling capability. The connection was dropping, so that is totally resolved. We did not even find any single instance of this type of case after implementing MariaDB. The second thing is the speed. Sometimes it performs faster. When we do EXPLAIN and everything, it shows us what indexing it has been using, and they are much more efficient than the other relational database. It handles everything in a good way. It is a balanced configuration. By default, it provides a balanced configuration, so we do not need to look into that side. The faster query speed and the better replication feature that is open source, and we also have community support for that. The security updates are very fast. It also supports storage engines for different types of data we can simply use. One of the things that is not ideal is that the version which is default is sometimes older than the very latest.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Kali Linux has positively impacted my organization significantly as it aids in red team work and penetration testing."
"I use the tool with Nmap to perform network audits. We use it to find vulnerabilities in our network through attacks. It's for those who want to launch or create viruses or perform attacks on systems. With Kali Linux, you can conduct penetration testing for networks, web applications, and Android mobile apps."
"Kali Linux is much better than other OS because it gives you a good set of tools. It is preferred for vulnerability assessments and cybersecurity."
"Kali Linux offers excellent features including being lightweight with low memory usage, easy installation, portability, and multiple architectures such as ARM architecture and server architecture."
"In general, Kali Linux is used for hosting applications, developing new applications, and operating systems. It's also used in containers and nodes. The tool offers a smaller footprint than Windows because it lacks the functionality of graphical user interfaces. One advantage of Kali Linux is its lower maintenance requirements than Windows, with slower update cycles and easier maintenance procedures."
"The interface is good and straightforward to use."
"The most valuable feature of Kali Linux is the attack it performs using a CVE script that's already on the internet."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it is very easy to use."
"MariaDB on CentOS is faster than Oracle."
"MariaDB on CentOS has positively impacted my organization by providing more features compared to Oracle MySQL, particularly in terms of performance, advantages, and implemented features, leading to migrations from Oracle MySQL to MariaDB on CentOS."
"MariaDB on CentOS has positively impacted our organization in several ways."
 

Cons

"Increasing the tutorials and the help inside Kali Linux would make it more useful."
"Kali Linux can be improved, as I have encountered challenges with dependencies that can be overwhelming."
"The only point that I didn't find on Kali Linux for now is the ability to customize port scanning."
"However, something about it might be improved, maybe the overall smoothness of it, because there are sometimes when I try to run a lot of applications, it tries to hang up on me."
"I would like to have automation in Kali Linux instead of manually configuring or setting up something in case of an upgrade."
"The only real limitation I can see with Kali Linux is the steep learning curve of using it."
"While Kali Linux has gotten better over the past years, it could be improved if it was bundled in a CLI-only pack."
"The product should integrate AI and GPT capabilities."
"Many functionalities are not available in MariaDB on CentOS, so those aspects needed to be rewritten, particularly Oracle proprietary features."
"I think MariaDB on CentOS needs improvements in some memory-level implementations within the operating system, as I have noticed issues related to memory orientation, such as out-of-memory problems."
"One of the things that is not ideal is that the version which is default is sometimes older than the very latest."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is open-source."
"The price is good because Kali Linux already provides a good bundle of tools."
"Kali Linux offers a perpetual license, meaning you pay for it once and can use it. While free versions of Linux are available, Kali Linux, being an enterprise edition, usually comes with a perpetual license. I rate its pricing a five out of ten."
"I have used the free version."
"It is an open-source tool."
"Kali Linux is a free product, and you don't have to pay for a license."
"Kali Linux is open source."
"The licensing fee is expensive compared to other products."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
14%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Educational Organization
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Kali Linux?
I use the tool with Nmap to perform network audits. We use it to find vulnerabilities in our network through attacks. It's for those who want to launch or create viruses or perform attacks on syste...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kali Linux?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Kali Linux has been that it was free to use.
What needs improvement with Kali Linux?
I think Kali Linux is good, but there is a widespread misunderstanding related to Kali Linux because many people believe Kali Linux is a tool for hackers and that anything can be hacked using it. T...
What is your primary use case for MariaDB on CentOS?
My main use case for MariaDB on CentOS in my last organization was in the telecom domain, where clients mainly focused on the database called MariaDB, for which we set up on-premises servers runnin...
What advice do you have for others considering MariaDB on CentOS?
I can share that after switching to MariaDB on CentOS, we saw great advantages in terms of high availability performance, particularly compared to other operating systems such as Linux and Unix pla...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Kali Linux vs. MariaDB on CentOS and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.